Day 12: blogs of other boats crossing

We've crossed the axis of the ITCZ…for now. It's famous for shifting position. We may be unlucky enough to cross it a few more times, if it moves below and above our position. For the moment, though, although not yet at the equator, we are into the weather and winds of the southern hemisphere. Our days are now getting slightly shorter instead of slightly longer; we're in the latter part of the southern fall instead of the northern spring. Weird, huh?

One of the things I meant to do before we left is update the blogroll with the blogs of new friends. It will have to wait until we get to Internet access (I have most bookmarked online… funny how something so accesible "normally" is entirely inaccessible from, say, THE MIDDLE OF THE PACIFIC!).

Here are a few additional blogs links, specifically from boats we know who are crossing as well… I believe they are all posting updates from sea. In no particular order:

The biggest drama among the fleet to date has been on the sailboat Windchild, who also departed from Banderas Bay but a couple of weeks ahead of us (they made landfall safely in Hiva Oa yesterday). When I posted about our SSB the other day, I'm pretty sure it included mention of the Pacific Seafarer's net as a really, really important safety net for vessels at sea. They were the key communications link for garnering assistance Windchild when a crew on their boat was recently injured. He's fine now, but addressing his head injuries involved having medical personnel *parachute from air transport* to the boat, evacuate him to a ship, and then airlift him to a hospital in California. They were at a latitude approximately west of central America at the time of the rescue. The Pacific Seafarer's net was an essential link throughout.